JFK & the Oil Biz

I had to really dig around to find Executive Action - a solid political thriller in a docu-drama stylee that's nicely acted by Burt Lancaster and Robert Ryan - hard to find I guess 'cause it's about the rather obvious conspiracy to assassinate JFK. Presumably Ellroy's seen this at some point because the film's cabal of big money, shady spooks and disgruntled ex-Cubans seems awfully familiar nonetheless it's the straight forwardness of this film, the simple stating of the facts that makes this a much more effective film than Stone's over long effort 18 years later.



Collapse is an alarming documentary about our peek oil problem & geopolitics. Apparently the film makers had contacted Michael Ruppert regarding his investigative work on CIA drug running in mainland USA but both thought this was the more compelling subject. It is decent film and Ruppert is quite the interesting chap but sadly it feels a little tin foil hatty to me at times. Maybe if they'd bolstered Ruppert's pieces with some other talking heads or something it would have felt less a rant and more of a theory.

Gashole on the other hand takes a much broader view of the oil problem with a focus on the duplicitous industries that lie behind our addiction. It maybe doesn't have the polish or the intensity of Collapse but there's some interesting titbits strewn along the way like the fact that Rudolf Diesel's original engine ran on peanut oil and Ogle's '77 patent for a 100mpg engine. I'm not personally convinced by the bio-diesel solution trumpeted here as it requires stretching our already exhausted agriculture even more but it's still the more effective film of the two.